Not really. Lockdown will slow the community transmission but only testing will give you the information on the high risk spreaders so that you can isolate them.Even Singapore announces a month long lock down. This is the only way to contain or stop this. Testing cant do jack squat other then give data. You can test today and be negative and turn positive tomorrow.
A good lockdown will stop this dead in it tracks.
Obviously at some point the lock down as to be lifted. Testing should be saved for people showing symptoms, atleast they can have a sigh of relief when they come back negative. A perfectly normal person who followed social distancing and washing hands need not take one. We just don't have that many test kits. We need about 25lakh test kits to test the passengers who entered india before the lockdown in march alone. Not sure about the number whether it applies to just delhi or entire india. I do know that bangalore as about 15k passengers under home quaratine as of march 24.Its not at all feasible to test 1.3 billion people.
But a long-term lockdown is not a end-all be-all solution. I fully support the concept behind the lockdown till 21st of April but you have to keep in mind that we live a third world country albeit with delusions of grandeur regarding being a superpower.
80% of our population works in the informal sector and right now they are subsisting on their meager savings. Once those run out how will they survive?
We belong to the top 1-2% of our nation who have the luxury of work-from-home but the large majority doesn't. In case the lockdown is extended even we will run out of basic necessities by then and the supply chain will grind to a halt.
The only solution can be to accelerate the testing on hotspots and use every surveillance mechanism we have to target and isolate the spreaders.
This needs to be done quickly within these 3 weeks as you cannot extend a lockdown without drastic impact on the general populace. TThe government has to treat 21st of April as a hard deadline and try its best to cover as many infected as it can.
Danny, the guy in the middle of the picture I posted just tested positive. He doesn't have any symptoms whatsoever and real OCD with PPEs.
He and my wife were the most careful person in our team. Both caught the bug...I'm the most careless one (checking phone in that picture)... something is keeping me safe... sincerely hope it's the case for all Indians.
Empirical, some Japanese researchers mentioned it. The case is compare Portugal with Spain^ BCG vaccine is supposed to be safeguarding most of the (careless) Indians !
not sure how far it can be true ...
we all are enjoying a special gift from India. We brought (rather smuggled) a large quantity of bidis form India while returning home. My wife is a genius, who packed a lot of those small packets in my backpack when we left for Poland and completely forgot about it. Last evening while trying to find a clean pair of trousers found that package. We all ran out of cigarettes long back and could only get a few packs smuggled in by kitchen staff. Now these awesome bidis are super hit here.
I am not sure if I did the right thing by liking your post. The first part is very bad news for you.I know it is a disgusting habit. Thought about vaping, but I am not a very sophisticated person. And I had substance abuse problems earlier. Both of us thought of quitting it. But as former junkies, some of our self destructive nature will probably remain. We were H users mate, the worst of the worst. May be someday I will quit it completely after having a heart attack or something.
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Shit!!! My leave is getting shortened....5 days break then to NYC ( was fearing this) both of us have to go. I am really running out of middle fingers. It wont stop until we all die. Thankfully my sister is living there now.
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Wow!! Thought our jobs are most secure in this testing times..we are looking at minimum 20 percent cut from April! Looks like USA was giving a lot more than the estimated 25-35 percent.
We completely deserve this. WHO is now practically divided into 2 groups ( medical doctors= US and others= China)
It's not only money and physical resources, America provided us with invaluable trainings including wartime surgeries and procedures. Trump used to trust us but we betrayed him.
WHO had more than 60 people in Wuhan and they have all the data ( which circulated internally among the medics) yet we published the Chinese doctored data. Don't know who took the decision. DG certainly didn't. An organisation can not run like this.
Most of the consultants working for WHO are not employees. We only get consultancy fees and can't vote during elections. A large number amongst us are now demanding voting rights and threatening to quit.
Probably by next year WHO will go back to the original structure of 90 percent doctors ( without boundaries and at least some post grad degree in public health ) 5 percent docs ( not in that particular organisation) 5 percent non medicos.
That was the best model for everyone.
WHO doesn't need the best of cardio vascular surgeons or similar people. We need fearless / reckless people who don't faint seeing bomb blast victims, people who don't complain about bad infrastructures and are not afraid of physical confrontation ( we had to fight with people in Africa)